On this day: October 23

2002: Chechen terrorists seize the House of Culture theater in Moscow and take approximately 850 theater-goers hostage. The terrorists demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and an end to the Second Chechen War. After a two-and-a-half day siege, Russian Spetsnaz forces pumped an unknown chemical agent (thought to be fentanyl, or 3-methylfentanyl), into the building's ventilation system and raided it. In the resulting fray, 39 of the attackers were killed by Russian forces, along with at least 129 of the hostages. All but a few of the hostages who died during the siege were killed by the toxic substance pumped into the theater to subdue the militants, causing a backlash against the government, especially for refusing to reveal the type of gas used in the assault.

2001: Apple announces the iPod. The first version of the portable media player, which featured a mechanical scroll wheel and came in 5gb and 10gb versions, went on sale Nov. 10, 2001.

1998: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat reach a "land for peace" agreement, known as the Wye River Memorandum. The agreement was brokered by the United States at the Aspen Institute Wye River Conference Centers near Wye River, Maryland. Although Israel withdrew from all territory it was required to transfer to the Palestinian Authority within the timetable called for, the agreement fell apart when Israel felt it was not seeing reciprocal steps being taken by the Palestinian Authority.

1995: In Houston, Texas, a jury convicts Yolanda Saldivar of the murder of Tejano music singer Selena (pictured). Three days later, she would be sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.

1993: Joe Carter of the Toronto Blue Jays becomes only the second player to end the World Series with a home run, hitting a game-winning three-run homer against the Philadelphia Phillies in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 6.

1987: The U.S. Senate rejects Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination by a vote of 42-58. Bork (seen here in 1987 with President Ronald Reagan), a judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, faced strong opposition by civil and women's rights groups concerned with his stated desire to roll back civil rights and his opposition to the right of the federal government to impose standards of voting fairness upon the states. The vacant seat on the court eventually went to Judge Anthony Kennedy, who was unanimously approved by the Senate.

1983: The U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut are hit by a truck bomb, killing 241 U.S. military personnel. A French army barracks in Lebanon was also hit that same morning, killing 58 troops.

1978: Musician Maybelle Carter, best known as a member of The Carter Family musical act and the mother of June Carter Cash, dies of respiratory complications and Parkinson's disease at age 69 in Nashville.

1976: Actor Ryan Reynolds, best known for roles in movies such as "Blade: Trinity," "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," "Green Lantern," "National Lampoon's Van Wilder" and "The Proposal," is born in Vancouver, British Columbia.

1973: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon agrees to turn over subpoenaed audio tapes of his Oval Office conversations.

1972: Operation Linebacker, a U.S. bombing campaign against North Vietnam in response to its Easter Offensive invasion of South Vietnam across the Demilitarized Zone, ends after five months.

1965: Author Augusten Burroughs, best known for his bestselling memoir "Running with Scissors," is born in Pittsburgh.

1962: Football player Doug Flutie, who first rose to prominence during his collegiate career at Boston College, where he won the Heisman Trophy and the Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award in 1984, is born in Manchester, Maryland. His Hail Mary touchdown pass in a game against the University of Miami on Nov. 23, 1984, is considered among the greatest moments in college football and American sports history. He went on to play professionally in the United States Football League, the National Football League, and the Canadian Football League, where he won three Grey Cup titles. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2007.

1959: Director Sam Raimi, best known for directing the "Evil Dead" movie series, "Darkman," "A Simple Plan," "Drag Me to Hell" and the trilogy of "Spider-Man" films starring Tobey Maguire, is born in Royal Oak, Mich.

1959: Alfred Matthew Yankovic, better known as the pop music parodist "Weird Al" Yankovic, is born in Downey, California.

1958: An underground earthquake traps 174 coal miners at Springhill, Nova Scotia, in the deepest coal mine in North America at the time. By Nov. 1, rescuers from around the world had dug out 100 of the victims, marking the death toll at 74.

1958: Russian poet and novelist Boris Pasternak wins the Nobel Prize for Literature for writing "Dr. Zhivago." The citation credits Pasternak's contribution to Russian lyric poetry and for his role in "continuing the great Russian epic tradition." He was eventually forced to refuse the honor due to negative Soviet reaction.

1958: The Smurfs, a fictional race of blue dwarves, later popularized in the Hanna-Barbera animated cartoon series, appear for the first time in the story "La flute à six schtroumpfs" ("The Flute with Six Holes") by Belgian cartoonist Peyo (pen name of Pierre Culliford) serialized in the weekly comics magazine Spirou.

1957: Christian Dior, the fashion designer who founded Christian Dior S.A., dies of a heart attack at age 52 in Montecatini Terme, Tuscany, Italy.

1956: Country singer-songwriter Dwight Yoakam, who has charted more than 30 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts and sold more than 25 million records, is born in Pikeville, Kentucky.

1954: Film director Ang Lee, best known for such movies as "Eat Drink Man Woman," "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," "Brokeback Mountain" and "Life of Pi," is born in Chaochou, Pingtung, Taiwan. He won Academy Awards for Best Director for both "Brokeback Mountain" and "Life of Pi" and was also nominated for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," which also won him the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

1950: Singer and actor Al Jolson, who was America's most famous and highest-paid entertainer in the 1930s and is best remembered as the star in the first full-length talking movie, 1927's "The Jazz Singer," dies of a massive heart attack at the age of 64 in San Francisco.

1944: The Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history, begins in the Philippines during World War II. The battle, which proved to be a decisive defeat for Japan, is also notable as the first battle in which Japanese aircraft carried out organized kamikaze attacks.

1942: All 12 passengers and crewmen aboard an American Airlines DC-3 airliner are killed when it is struck by a U.S. Army Air Forces bomber near Palm Springs, California. Among the victims was award-winning composer and songwriter Ralph Rainger (left), whose best known songs included "Thanks for the Memory," "Love in Bloom" and "Blue Hawaii."

1942: Writer Michael Crichton, best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction and thriller genres, including "Jurassic Park," "The Andromeda Strain" and "Disclosure," is born in Chicago. He died of throat cancer at age 66 on Nov. 5, 2008.

1941: "Dumbo," the fourth animated Disney movie, premieres in theaters. The movie proved to be the most financially successful Disney film of the 1940s, earning $1.6 million during its original run compared to its $950,000 production cost. "Dumbo" won the Academy Award for Original Music Score and one of its songs, "Baby Mine," was nominated for Best Original Song.

1940: Soccer star Pelé, regarded as one of the best players of all time, is born under the birth name Edison Arantes do Nascimento in Tres Corações, Brazil.

1939: Author Zane Grey, best known for his Western adventure novels and stories, including his best-selling book, 1912's "Riders of the Purple Sage," dies of heart failure at the age of 67 in Altadena, California.

1936: Director and screenwriter Philip Kaufman, best known for directing movies such as "The Right Stuff," "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," "Henry & June" and "Rising Sun," is born in Chicago, Illinois.

1925: Johnny Carson, best known for the 30 years he spent as host of "The Tonight Show," is born in Corning, Iowa. He died of respiratory failure arising from emphysema at the age of 79 on Jan. 23, 2005.

1915: In New York City, 25,000 to 33,000 women march on Fifth Avenue to advocate their right to vote.

1911: Italian pilot Capt. Carlo Piazza takes off from Libya to observe Turkish army lines during the Italo-Turkish War, marking the first time an aircraft was used in war.

1906: Alberto Santos-Dumont flies an experimental airplane known as the "14-bis" in the first heavier-than-air flight in Europe at Champs de Bagatelle, Paris, France. The aircraft flew for more than 200 feet at an altitude of about 10 feet.

1869: John Heisman, a college football coach for 36 years and one of the greatest innovators of the game, is born Cleveland, Ohio. Heisman left coaching to become director of the Downtown Athletic Club of New York City. Beginning in 1935, the club annually awarded a trophy, known since 1936 as the Heisman Trophy, to the top college football player.

1814: Surgeon Joseph Carpue performs the first modern plastic surgery at the Duke of York's Hospital in Chelsea, England, using a technique created in India several centuries earlier. Carpue used a flaps of skin taken from the forehead to operate on a British military officer who had lost his nose to the toxic effects of mercury treatments and another whose nose was mutilated by a sword.

1812: Claude François de Malet, a French general, begins a conspiracy to overthrow Napoleon Bonaparte, claiming that the Emperor died in Russia and that he was now the commandant of Paris in his place. The coup attempt was quickly suppressed and Malet would be executed by a firing squad on Oct. 29, 1812.

42 B.C.: Mark Antony and Octavian decisively defeat Marcus Junius Brutus' army in the Second Battle of Philippi. The battle was the final battle in the Wars of the Second Triumvirate, a Roman civil war that Antony and Octavian had declared to avenge Julius Caesar's murder at the hands of assassins Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus. Brutus committed suicide after losing the battle, 20 days after Cassius had done the same.

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